Giving Compass' Take:

• Julia Freeland Fisher at the Christensen Institute interviews Torrance Robinson, the creator of a tool called trovvit.  Robinson explains how students can utilize this app to build their networks.

• What is the benefit for students to start learning how to build social capital? How will this tool strengthen the future workforce?

• Read about what students need to access opportunity. 

All too often in education, students’ relationships—with mentors, teachers, tutors, and peers—are seen as inputs to creating academic work and building students’ human capital. But what if the work that students created served as the launching pad for building and nurturing connections? How might tools and schools organize themselves with this virtuous cycle wherein learning and connecting are intricately linked?

To think through how schools might do this I sat down with education entrepreneur Torrance Robinson. Robinson has been building a tool called trovvit. Like other tools emerging in the “edtech that connects” market, trovvit is designed to help students forge—and just as importantly, to maintain—connections that help them get by and get ahead.

Julia: What is trovvit?

Torrance: trovvit is an app that is designed to help students build their social, emotional and learning capital by capturing what they are learning and sharing their progress with their network. Think LinkedIn meets Instagram for students.  Like Instagram, trovvit makes it easy for students to create a visual record of their work and share it. Like LinkedIn, trovvit helps students build a network they can rely on for feedback and to discover new opportunities.

Julia: Which schools are deploying this tool and why? What’s the value proposition to teachers, students, and parents?

Torrance: We are currently piloting with K-12 schools. In one middle school, trovvit is transforming the Genius Hour curriculum and the high school application process. Because incoming freshman can sign into trovvit and link to the CTE school, before the school doors even open, these counselors can use trovvit to get a better sense of each student’s interests and abilities and help guide them in their choices of courses, activities, and pathways.

Read the full article about building student networks by Julia Freeland Fisher at Christensen Institute